1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a display input device including a display unit and an input unit such as a touch panel, and also relates to an image forming apparatus equipped with the same, such as a copier, a multifunction peripheral, a printer, or a fax machine.
2. Description of Related Art
For instance, an image forming apparatus such as a copier or a multifunction peripheral is equipped with many functions (e.g., scaling, aggregate print, two-sided print, and the like). The image forming apparatus may be equipped with a display input device having a screen with a liquid crystal display unit and a touch panel, for example, so that a function to be set can be easily selected and set among the many functions. In addition, a plurality of functions that are often used and set values thereof may be registered as a program, so that the setting can be performed easily. The user can set many functions by one touch of the key for calling the program.
For instance, there is known an image forming apparatus equipped with a copy mode input set unit for inputting various copy modes such as a sheet size, so as to be a multimode type that can perform copy operation by the input and set copy mode, a copy mode call/register unit having two functions of copy mode call and registration set by the copy mode input set unit, and a control unit that switches program call and registration in accordance with a state of the image forming apparatus. Thus, it is possible to perform copy mode call and registration by one key operation.
In general, the display input device displays many set items for setting functions. The user selects one or more set items and sets the set value. Then, as described above, some known image forming apparatuses can register the setting performed for copying as a program. However, the user may want to change the registered contents of the program little or largely for performing a process. In this case, the user has to perform usual selection of set items and setting of set values. In addition, it is difficult for other person than the user who registered the program to know which set items have been selected and which set values have been set. In this way, the conventional method has a problem in usability after calling the program.
In addition, after calling the program, addition of set items, deletion of the same, and change of a set value in a set item can be usually performed without limitation. Therefore, after calling the program, selection cancellation of a set item, change of a determined set value, additional selection of an unnecessary set item, and the like may be performed. However, the operation of changing registered contents of the program may be what is undesired (unexpected) by the person who registered (created) the program. In other words, there is a problem that an operation mistake for the person who registered the program may be performed.
For instance, in order to prevent waste of resources, it may be obliged to use an aggregate function (in which each page is scaled down so that a plurality of pages of document are included in one page). In this case, an operation mistake of removing the aggregate may occur. In addition, in order to prevent transmission mistake, in data transmission such as FAX or the like, even if a transmission destination is fixed, an operation mistake of changing a transmission destination fixed as a set value may occur.